Muslims Unite! A New Reformation Will Bring Your Faith into the Modern Era

The British government's strategy of relying on traditional, but essentially orthodox, Muslims to help eradicate Islamist radicalism is ineffective, writes Salman Rushdie. Traditional Islam is a broad church that includes millions of tolerant, moderate believers – as well as those at odds with the cultures among which they live. What is truly needed to combat terrorism, says Rushdie, is a Muslim Reformation – a move beyond tradition to bring the core concepts of Islam into the modern age and "[throw] open the windows of the closed communities to let in much-needed fresh air." Noting that the many of the problems with modern Islam lie in the traditionalists' denial of history, the author claims that seeing the Koran as a historical document would enable the reinterpretation of its ideas to meet the realities of the 21st century. – YaleGlobal